Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [28]
His pursuer appeared over the edge of the roof, throwing a cold shadow over him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she shouted, and reached for him.
He let go of the gutter.
She snatched him out of the air, both hands gripping his left wrist. In a single heave she pulled him onto the roof.
He struggled, but her grip was like iron, and already the sun was ringing in his head like a funeral bell. She was behind him, one hand across his chest, the other clutching his wrist. ‘Relax,’ she said into his ear, ‘Relax. I’ve got you.’
With a sound like a camera snapping, reality clicked into place. He melted into her grasp, his head falling back against her shoulder.
This was Earth, and he was safe, and there was no need to escape. No need to get away. Some part of his mind was broken like a renegade piece of a pocket watch, rattling loose inside the casing.
He was out of his mind.
He opened his mouth to cry out with the horror of it. But then he remembered, and was silent.
Two weeks later. Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart sat curled in a wicker chair in her underwear. She was watching the Doctor sleep.
The bump that indicated his toes was a good three feet from the end of the canopied bed. His arms were folded neatly on his chest above the covers.
She’d never seen anyone alive look so relaxed.
Weeks ago she’d got out of the nervous habit of checking whether he was still breathing. He took a couple of breaths a minute. His skin was cold enough that condensation sometimes formed on it.
54
He slept with a tiny smile on his face, as though sleeping were a new and exotic luxury he was determined to fully explore. As though spending several weeks comatose was something he’d intended to do.
Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep. Kadiatu had dropped off in the big wicker chair.
The upstairs bedroom was gently scented with pot-pourri, almost enough to overwhelm the distant smell of burning.
With the curtains carefully drawn, she could imagine she was anywhere, that she could walk down the stairs and into any street she chose. Not into the stinking Paris midnight, the hot air and the shouting.
She was awake before she was sure what had awoken her, uncurling from the chair onto her bare feet. The cold wooden floor made her shiver. She rubbed the back of her neck. A clock on the mantelpiece was ticking like industrial machinery.
He was blinking in the candlelight. ‘Ruby?’ he muttered, squinting at her.
‘Ruby Duvall?’
She padded over to the side of the bed. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Fancy meeting you here. Small world, isn’t it? Where’s Ace?’
Kadiatu unlocked a drawer and removed a handscan. ‘She isn’t here. It was just you.’ She ran the scanner over him.
‘Two psychics meet in the street. One says to the other, “You’re fine, how am I?”’ His voice was a little hoarse, which wasn’t surprising, given that most of the epidermis of his throat had had to grow back.
‘All things considered, you’re in pretty good shape. What do you remember?’
‘Useless things, mostly. I remember drinking coca leaf tea in a hotel on Cloudcuckooland, above the cumulus on a mountain twenty miles tall.’ His eyes darted around the room like searchlights. ‘They said I could have my breakfast at any time, so I said I’d like to have it in Nineteenth Century France.’
‘Eighteen seventy-one,’ said Kadiatu. ‘The furniture?’
‘Your clothing.’
‘You were just wearing some sort of coveralls.’
‘Not much style,’ he said.
‘Where did you come from?’
‘Where did I arrive?’
‘At a friend’s house.’
‘This is your house?’
‘It belongs to the friend. A black foreign single woman is conspicuous enough without also being propertied.’
‘How long ago?’
‘About two months.’
‘I’m grateful.’
55
She shook her head. ‘You’re my exit visa.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Sans my TARDIS, that might be a bit tricky.’
‘You’ll think of something. Is there anything you want?’
‘Universal peace. I’ll settle for a glass of water.’
She brought him a glass of water. He sat up, shrugging his left shoulder